


Auld Lang Syne

by Morpheus626



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:34:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Some poly!Queen, based off my own frustration that I fell asleep hard at like ten last night, and didn’t make it to midnight for New Years (I didn’t wake up till nine this morning, y’all. Like what even was that, the one night my staying up should have been easy to do lol.)Quick synopsis: Everyone falls asleep before midnight except for John. And normally that would be whatever, but it’s New Years, and he’s not happy about being the only one awake for this night.
Relationships: John Deacon/Brian May/Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Auld Lang Syne

“I cannot believe you all,” John puttered around the living room, mugs of tea balanced in his hands and the crooks of his elbows. “Asleep! With two hours to go!”

“And awakened by nine in the morning,” Freddie grumbled, though he took the mug with an appreciative smile. “What a world.”

“Yes!” John continued. “You lot are never the ones to bed early, and the one night it counted-”

“With all respect,” Brian interrupted. “It’s only New Years, Deaky. By definition, we will all go on, and things will be okay.”

The wrong thing to say, quickly apparent with John’s scoff and the dumping of Brian’s tea into the nearest plant.

“Was that really necessary?” Freddie sighed. “That plant is fake, anyway...”

“I’ve been watering it for at least a month,” Brian whined. “When were you going to tell me that?”

“You didn’t look at it?” Freddie laughed. “It’s obviously fake.”

“In his defense,” Roger interjected. “I have also been watering it. I thought it might be fake, but I didn’t want it to die and upset anyone if it was real, so...”

“So if it was real, we would have killed it anyway,” Brian muttered.

“I’m glad the plant is worthy of your attention,” John didn’t shout, but his voice carried out the open window, loud enough to stop the conversation their neighbors were having outside. “Let me know when I am as well, will you?”

He was in the spare bedroom with the door slammed and locked before they could so much as blink.

“I think we fucked up,” Roger mumbled. “In my professional opinion.”

“Professional opinion?” Freddie asked.

“As someone who’s had his fair share of fuck ups,” Roger replied.

Freddie nodded. “I agree. But all the same, I feel like I’m missing something. He didn’t seem all that into celebrating last night; I figured he’d be the first asleep anyway.”

“That’s true,” Brian noted, and they could see the wheels in his head turning. “But, think of it like this. He did organize the little party for us. Bought groceries. Bought the champagne. Had it all ready for us as we each got home.”

Freddie set his mug on the coffee table and ran a hand down his face with a sigh. “We fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Brian winced. “We did.”

\---

It wasn’t that he held any great love for any holiday (except maybe Christmas, that one wasn’t terrible.) But he had put so much work into New Years this time, and they had seemed to be enjoying it. They’d all been a bit pissed, but surely even drunken promises to stay awake for two more hours meant something, right?

“I’m being an ass,” John muttered to himself as he paced the room. What had he been hoping for anyway? Something stupid and overly romantic, something he didn’t normally concern himself with too much. But it had stuck in his head a few weeks prior, the idea of trading kisses right on the hour (they were boyfriends after all, even if their relationship together was often low-key, easily mistaken for and hidden as only friendship when necessary.)

And when midnight had struck, they’d all been passed out. He’d fought so hard to stay awake for them, and they seemingly hadn’t even tried to stay up.

“Get over it,” he grumbled to himself again. He wanted to let himself shout it all out to the walls, as he’d done in the past when he was the only one in the flat, but he certainly couldn’t do it now, even if keeping it in his head made him feel overwhelmed, his mind overfull with thoughts. “You’re just tired anyway, you were up until fucking midnight.”

It had actually been more like two in the morning before he’d gotten to sleep himself. He’d left them in the living room, draped on the floor and in a chair and on the couch. The idea, as upset as he’d been that night, even more than now, was that he would enjoy taking the bed from them. It barely fit all four of them anyway (hence the spare bedroom, with its own decently-sized bed), so it wouldn’t be luxurious, but it would be all his.

Instead, he’d tossed and turned (and if he was honest with himself, cried for a short while) and when he did sleep, it wasn’t restful at all.

He stopped pacing and let himself drop onto the bed. Maybe a nap would be reset enough, to quell the fire in his head over something that, even as he was upset over it, he knew was stupid.

\---

“John?” Freddie knocked at the door of the spare bedroom, but heard nothing in reply. “He’s holding a grudge, apparently.”

“He is good at those,” Roger said softly. “Let me try?”

They exchanged places, and Roger leaned against the door. “Deaky? We’re sorry, we are. We didn’t realize this was so important to you. That’s on us; we’re stupid like that sometimes. But that’s no excuse, and we’d like to apologize proper and make it up to you.”

Nothing.

“Did he mention something he wanted to do last night, and we were too pissed to remember him saying it?” Roger hissed to them.

Freddie and Brian shrugged. If John had said anything, they certainly didn’t remember.

“Talk to us, at least,” Roger continued to the door. “We can’t help and make it better if we don’t know the details of how we fucked up. And I really am sorry, but we only have a glimmer. We know you must have had something planned for New Years, but we don’t recall what it was, and I admit, that’s terrible. If you can bear it, tell us what it was, remind us, and we can try and fix this.”

Still nothing.

Roger looked utterly gutted. “He always responds when it’s me. Why isn’t he saying anything?”

“I don’t know,” Freddie sighed. “Come on, the tea’s gone cold. We can make more, and Brian...”

“I’ll try,” Brian said, and moved past Roger to sit on the floor by the door.

He waited until they were off to the kitchen to talk. “John? I don’t know if you can hear me. I presume you can. I-”

He stopped himself. The words he had on his tongue were too angry, too frustrated with John for not communicating to them.

He took a breath. “I’m sorry. We did fuck up, and we’re all sorry for that. But you’ve hurt Rog now, you know? He thought for sure you’d reply to him, and you didn’t.”

A pause. He wanted to just shake the doorknob until John opened up, but all the same, he knew that would be both childish and totally useless.

“We want to make it up to you. Make things right. But we can’t do that if you don’t talk to us. Give us a chance to apologize. This isn’t like you, anyway. You have your quiet moments, but usually, when we fight-”

Brian leaned in closer to the door, a sound barely perceptible through it.

Snoring.

He had to laugh, he couldn’t help it, as he stood and walked to the kitchen.

“Glad this is so funny to you,” Roger frowned. “I know you and Deaky have your moments, but really-”

“He’s sleeping,” Brian interrupted him with another giggle. “He went in there to mope, probably got frustrated with himself over it, and fell asleep as soon as he lay down.”

“How do you know all that?” Freddie asked, fighting with their breakfast, for now just a few eggs in a pan. “Roger, can you help here?”

They switched spots, and Freddie met Brian’s gaze. “Seriously. You can’t just make presumptions and hope it’ll soothe things.”

“I’m not,” Brian scoffed. “I can hear him snoring. Go, sit by the door, and lean in close as you can. He’s out cold.”

Freddie walked past him and to the door, and returned a moment later with a smile. “Poor thing. How late do you think he stayed up last night, without us?”

“Everything was cleaned up,” Roger replied. “So too late, I would guess.”

“Get a plate out,” Freddie instructed. “We’re going to pick that lock and get him breakfast in bed.”

“You mean we’re going to wake him up when he needs to sleep, and force food on him?” Brian suggested.

“No, because you know that if he sleeps too long into the day, he fusses anyway,” Freddie replied. “Because then he won’t be tired enough to sleep later tonight, and he’ll just keep rolling like that, from one grumpy mood to the next.”

“Fair point,” Brian nodded. “We should find something to use as a tray...”

“We have one,” Roger said. “...wait, no. We did. The fake plant is sitting on it, I think. Didn’t want water to drain out of the pot and onto the floor...”

“Oh, but we are a foursome, aren’t we?” Freddie laughed. “If he sits up, and eats carefully, he can just set the plates on the bed.”

“I’ll go get the tray and clean it,” Roger said. “The plant doesn’t need it anyway, or so we now know.”

“I could swear I told you two it was fake,” Freddie noted, but Roger was already off to the living room, leaving him and Brian to tend the food.

\---

In his dream, it was almost too much. He couldn’t even enjoy it, he knew it was a dream.

They fawned over him, well beyond anything anyone would do for him in real life (and to a degree that made him uncomfortable.)

Freddie, naked in his lap, trying to get him to sip champagne from an overfull glass.

Roger, clothed only in the tiny rugby shorts he occasionally shared with Freddie, offering him toast on a plate. Just toast, oddly enough.

Brian, a telescope in hand, nearly forcing him to look through it. “It’ll fall at midnight, you know.”

“What?” John’s tongue felt fuzzy in the dream, heavy to move, but maybe champagne in dreams was just stronger. “The moon?”

Brian nodded. “If you want it to.”

“I think we need it up there,” John replied. “For tides, and things like that.”

Brian shrugged, and handed him a plate with scrambled eggs on it.

“What is this for?”

Brian shrugged again, and pointed to the moon. “There it goes!”

He watched the moon dip down, falling to land who knew where, its light dimming as it fell.

A panic rose in his chest, and though there was nothing he could do to stop it falling, he felt he had to try.

Before he could get up, trying to gently push Freddie off his lap, Freddie handed him, of all things, a mug of coffee.

“What in the fuck is going on?” John asked him, but Freddie didn’t reply, his gaze falling on their front door.

The knob shook and wiggled, and the sounds of someone trying to pick the lock suddenly came through clearly.

\---

“This alone might wake him up,” Brian laughed. “We’ve done this before, how is it taking so long this time?”

“Says the man holding the tray, not trying to get the lock open!” Roger muttered as he fought with the lock picking kit and the door.

“I’m helping in the best way I can,” Brian replied, playfully miffed.

“And you?” Roger asked of Freddie, who was barely holding back his own giggles.

“I...am moral support. I believe in you! You can do it!”

“You don’t remember how to use this kit, do you?”

“I do not,” Freddie replied confidently.

“Delightful,” Roger shook his head, but he giggled as he kept on at the lock.

The door swung open, and took him with it, onto John’s feet.

“Good morning!” Roger chirped, muffled as he picked himself up. “We’ve brought you a ‘we’re very sorry’ breakfast! It’s still warm, even.”

John’s eyes jumped over each of them a few times, their faces showing how eagerly they were awaiting his reaction.

He burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. All he could think of was them in his dream, half clothed and offering him breakfast.

“Um,” Roger said softly. “It isn’t that bad. I mean the eggs look a bit rough, but that’s because Freddie helped with them-”

“I did my best!” Freddie interrupted. “They’re scrambled anyway; they aren’t meant to look a masterpiece.”

“If you settle back in bed,” Brian interjected, peeking past them to John. “I can set this down, and you can eat, and we’ll go away again.”

“No,” John sighed. “You don’t have to go away. Did you make enough for yourselves?”

“Yeah,” Roger replied. “Mostly because I kept forgetting to do less than what we usually make. It’s habit, you know?”

John nodded. “Let me eat out there with you all. This was very sweet though, I’ll say that.”

“Not till you say what we did wrong,” Brian stammered, seemingly surprised at himself, shrugging as Brian and Roger looked to him with confused frowns. “I mean. We could just smooth things over with breakfast, but that doesn’t really make it better, does it? We should work through what actually happened, or rather didn’t, since we fell asleep last night.”

John shook his head. “Was stupid. And I didn’t help things; I didn’t really say to you all what I was expecting. You couldn’t do what I didn’t tell you I wanted.”

“Fair, but I doubt it was stupid,” Roger said. “What was it?”

John blushed bright red. “Just wanted a kiss from each of you when it hit midnight. God, that sounds stupid out loud, doesn’t it? How old am I? Like some damsel in a movie, or something...”

“Hang on,” Roger reached over and pulled him close, then dipped him down and kissed him, even as he giggled.

He brought them back up with a snap, apparently struggling not to just tip over. “Sorry. That was kind of shit, but best I can do at this time of the morning.”

John grinned. “It’s nearly noon.”

“Morning, noon,” Roger shrugged. “What is time, anyway?”

Freddie nodded, and motioned for John to come over to him. The kiss was soft and sweet and still tasted slightly of champagne. “Not midnight, but I think it still counts.”

Brian smiled, then frowned at the tray still in his hands. “Can I set this down before I have my go? I don’t want to spill coffee on you or something.”

“Here,” Roger took the tray from him, and nodded for Freddie to follow him. “We’ll be in the kitchen, getting the rest ready. Freshen up the coffee and tea as well, all that.”

Brian’s kiss was as gentle as Freddie’s, a hand holding the tip of John’s chin up.

“Can I ask you something?” John murmured as the kiss ended.

“Sure,” Brian smiled.

“Would you watch the moon fall, let it fall, if I wanted it to?”

Brian blinked, clearly confused. “I suppose I would. If it’s falling out of the sky, chances are good something serious is going on anyway, whether you caused it or not. I couldn’t stop it, and the effects would be monstrous, so if it would make you happy-”

He paused, and nodded. “Yeah. I’d watch it fall with you.”

John hugged him tightly. “Good. That’s what I thought.”

Brian still looked baffled, but he smiled and welcomed John to his side as they walked to the kitchen, towards the sounds of Freddie and Roger running amok, and the scent of just-starting-to-burn coffee.


End file.
